Breaking News Panel: Bolsonaro and the Challenges to Democratic Rights and Academic Freedom

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Session Description

The Bolsonaro government has launched a frontal attack on higher education, particularly targeting scholars seen to be propagating “cultural Marxism” and “gender ideology.” Dramatic cuts in graduate and undergraduate scholarships in the social sciences and humanities have been slated, with the Education Minister further declaring that students and faculty pursuing “ideological research” would have difficultly accessing government funding. He also announced the government’s intent to “decentralize investments in philosophy and sociology” within public universities, and to shift financial support to “areas that give immediate returns to taxpayers, such as veterinary science, engineering, and medicine.” Indeed, all knowledge production has become suspect, with the government recently announcing 35 percent budget cuts across the country’s vast federal university system. These developments form a core part of a broader ultra-right political project that entails assaults on a wide range of democratic rights. This panel brings together distinguished Brazilian scholars and Brazil specialists who will address the country’s current process of de-democratization, with particular emphasis on its gendered and racialized dimensions.

Sub Unit

• Theme Panel

Chair

• Sonia E. Alvarez University of Massachusetts, Amherst

Presenters

• Flávia Millena Biroli University of Brasília (UnB)

• Keisha-Khan Perry Brown University

• Gladys Mitchell-Walthour University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

• Marlise Miriam Almeida Matos Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais

• Sidney Chalhoub Harvard University